Boko Haram pledges allegiance to Islamic State – reports

In this screen grab image taken on February 9, 2015 from a video made available by Islamist group Boko Haram, leader Abubakar Shekau makes a statement at an undisclosed location. (AFP Photo/Boko Haram) / AFP

The Nigerian militant group Boko Haram has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, according to reports citing an audio message.

The message, published on Boko Haram’s Twitter account cannot be
immediately verified. According to reports, it was likely to have
been recorded by the group’s leader.

Jihadist monitoring group SITE said that it was Boko Haram leader
Abu Bakr Shekau who formally pledged the allegiance to Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed leader of the Islamic State,
Reuters news agency reported.

In his speech the Boko Haram leader reportedly said the group
would “hear and obey” the Caliph “in times of
difficulty and prosperity”.

Last June ISIS jihadists declared the captured areas a new
Islamic State – a caliphate. The ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
proclaimed himself a caliph and urged other radical Sunni groups
to pledge their allegiance.

Shortly afterwards, the head of Nigeria’s Boko Haram radicals
vowed support for the Sunni Islamic State extremists and other
Islamist groups in a video statement.

In November, numerous jihadists from Egypt, Algeria, Libya and
other countries pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. This
January, Afghani and Pakistani militants also joined the Islamic
State, claiming they constituted its province.

Boko
Haram has grown from a small terror group to a mini-country with
its own territory, which can be compared to gains made by the
Islamic State (IS). Boko Haram now controls an area the size of
Slovakia.

The militant group’s territory now totals about 52,000 square
kilometers, according to an estimate released by The Telegraph.

One of the latest towns to be captured by the group was Baga in
the northeastern Nigerian state of Borno, close to Lake Chad.
According to witness estimates, Boko Haram militants killed at
least 2,000 people there, although the Nigerian military later
put the figure at 150.

Last April the group attracted unprecedented global attention
with an abduction of nearly 300 schoolgirls in the town of
Chibok. The incident was globally condemned.

Boko Haram's attacks have caused great concern not only in
Nigeria, but also in neighboring countries. The African Union
Peace and Security Council have authorized a force of 7,500
troops from Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Niger, and Benin to fight
the militants. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also approved the
plan.

Boko Haram atrocities are estimated to have left at least 13,000
dead since the insurgency began in 2009. Around 1.5 million
people have become internal refugees due to the violence, soaring
from 600,000 in the past six months, according to the UN.

The group was founded in 2002 but its increasing radicalization
started after an uprising in 2009 when the militants began
carrying out massacres, kidnappings and raids.